• Between c.1200 and 1100 BC, the Mycenean palaces, including their archives, were burnt down for the last time
  • c.1200: Knossos, Mycenae, and Tiryns
  • c.1190 Midea, Pylos, and Thebes
  • Kydonia suffers a destruction around 1200 BC, but it seems to be rebuilt and persist until about 1100 BC
  • Feeble attempt at rebuilding at Tiryns, and a nucleated settlement within its walls for the following century
  • The remaineder abandoned without further ado

c.1180-1100 BC

Pylos, 11th century BC

Karphi, Crete

Dreros, Lasithi Plateau, Crete

• "Dorian Invasions" a.k.a. "Return of the Descendents of Herakles" (Herakleidai)
• Invasion and raiding by the "Sea peoples"
  • But these attackers, recorded in Egypt and Syria, include Denyen and Ekwesh who may = Homer's "Danaans" and "Akhai[w]ans" - i.e. Greeks Further written evidence
  • The term for "Great King," wanax (later anax), survives only as the title of heroes in Homer or as the epithet of certain male gods
  • However, the subordinate title basileus persists as one of the usual terms for "king"

• Archaeological Evidence
  • The destruction appears to be accidental, not deliberate
  • So the difficult question is, why weren't they rebuilt again?
• Complex causes
  • Natural disasters?
  • Climate Change?
  • Economic crisis?
  • Ecological unsustainability?
  • Decimation, dislocation, and migration of impoverished populations?

• The Mycenean period ends with the burning of the palaces between 1200 and 1100 BC
• The short interval from c.1100 BC until 1050 BC is sometimes called "submycenean" and "subminoan"
  • c.1050-950/900 Protogeometric Period
  • c.950-850 Early Geometric Period
  • c.850-750 Middle Geometric Period
  • c.750-700 Late Geometric Period
• Note: the chronology is still under serious revision as new finds appear.

• Material culture forms associated with the palaces either disapper entirely or are radically transformed and reinterpreted.
  • The use of Linear B script ceases (which is, of course, why it had to be "deciphered" in modern times)
  • Burial in tholos tombs, as well as lesser "chamber tombs" that are modeled after them, ceases (which is why later Greeks misidentified them as "treasuries," etc.)
  • The megaron is radically transformed in structure and purpose, if not entirely abandoned as a design

• The traditional explanation essentially takes the perspective of the Mycenean elites, describing the succeeding period only in terms of destructions and absences
  • "Barbarian invaders"
  • Lack of written records
  • Dimminution of certain forms of wealth
  • Abandonment of major sites and, by inference, depopulation
• However, much like the "Dark Age" of the First Millennium AD, this is a period of important socio-cultural developments
  • Technological innovations: iron, ceramic manufacturing processes
  • Formation of classical Greek political institutions
  • Development of mythological canon that is eventually set down in writing

Disappearance of stirrup jar, stemmed kylix as distinct forms. Appearance of lekythos, skyphos (with conical base)

• Marker Vessels
  • Krater : wine mixing bowl
  • Amphora : large, closed-form with two opposing handles on shoulder or neck
  • Pithos : a storage jar
• From the earliest period cremation, especially for men of means (so-called "heroic burial")
• But inhumation for women of the same class
• Later, inhumation in cists for both genders
  • Does cremation reflect an old tradition "re-emerging" too?

From the Dipylon Cemetery, Athens

(left and bottom) "Moliones" oinochoe, found in the Agora, Athens; (right) Krater, found in Thebes